By Rock Westfall
College football fans who waited nine months for the start of the regular season will be treated to an insulting total of 56 matchups between FCS and FBS teams in Week 1. Furthermore, in Week 2, it does not get much better with 29 more such matchups. This bill of goods is another example of how college football perpetually disrespects and abuses its fans. Games such as Chattanooga at Tennessee in Week 1 are faux scrimmages rather than competitive games. There is no ZERO appeal to fans.
The amount of money the networks are paying college football is staggering. The College Football Playoff and the Power Four conferences are commanding multi-billion-dollar deals. TV has never paid more to the schools than now – and the rates keep skyrocketing.
Television has more influence over college football than ever before. Yet, it is still capitulating to an embarrassingly weak schedule loaded with cream-puff junk calories in the first two weeks of the 2024 campaign. Even more maddening are the potential opportunities for great matchups forsaken by this fraud.
All of which begs the question: Why does TV enable such garbage?
Can it be August already?
🚨 For current season ticket holders remember to renew by 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟵!
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The Horror – In More Ways Than One
My policy is to NEVER watch an FCS vs. FBS matchup. I never have and I never will, regardless if it is a program I follow closely or not. And I am not alone. Such matchups have always been annoying, even decades ago when TV money was not the factor it is today.
Sure, lightning strikes every once in a while when the FCS and FBS meet. The best example was the 2007 season opener between Appalachian State and Michigan at the Big House. The game was expected to be a blowout, so it was put on the newborn Big Ten Network where nobody would see it. Infamously known by the Maize and Blue faithful as “The Horror,” Appalachian State beat Michigan 34-32 in what ranks as the greatest college football upset ever.
However, that is the rare exception to the rule. Most of these matchups are unwatchable. Season ticket holders will give away their seats to these games as an act of charity to those who normally cannot get into the stadium. Fans at home will switch to actual games between two FBS opponents. Fans and alums of the schools involved in these farces will often do chores instead of watching them on TV. Indeed, it is an entire precious but wasted week of college football.
The Ultimate Act of Cowardice and Fake Benevolence
College football coaches love games against FCS opponents. Such matchups should always be a guaranteed win and one of the six victories needed for bowl eligibility. For marginal programs always operating on the bowl bubble, picking up a fake win over an FCS program is an essential part of the fraud perpetrated upon fans. Avocados from Mexico Bowl, here we come!
The FBS spin is that FCS programs are more dangerous than the public understands. Additionally, such “paycheck games” are vital for the existence of FCS programs. For most schools, a game against an FBS program will fund the entire athletic budget for the fiscal year. Thus, the FBS can play the role of the benevolent good guy who cares about funding women’s gymnastics at FCS schools. At the same time, the FBS program will avoid a week of negative social and traditional media.
Big Ten brass is considering a 10-game schedule. This makes a lot of sense given expansion.
They'll want to keep those dollars in the conference for both gate receipts and TV revenue.
Two biggest casualties will be:
– Mid/Low G5 paycheck games
– Interesting big time P5 OOCs— College Football Nerds (@CFBNerds) August 14, 2023
TV Should Put Its Foot Down and End the Fraud
Consider all the money that the TV networks are paying, all the money that coaches (and now players) are making, and the geometric expense increase for college football fans to attend games. There is no way that FCS teams should play FBS teams anymore. Never. It must end. And until it ends the FBS teams should not be credited with a win that counts toward the six necessary to make a bowl game.
Fans deserve legitimate quality matchups every week for every team. Coaches deserve no fake game, break in the schedule, nor do the players, who have never been more powerful. And you would think TV networks hate paying for the facade.
The FCS funding issue is a problem it must solve. NCAA Division III and the NAIA somehow put on football games and athletic programs without being fed to the meat grinder of playing against an FBS opponent.
Ironically, there is only one participant in this debasement of the sport who is more contemptuously cowardly than the coaches. These are the enablers of the TV networks themselves.
May the TV ratings and every FBS program that participates in this farce experience their own version of “The Horror.”
SHAME!
The SEC plays as many games against FCS opponents in week 1 as the B1G does the entire season…
— Barstool Big Ten (@BarstoolB1G) August 10, 2023
